[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 103 (Thursday, July 22, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Page S8650]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             SENATOR BOB DOLE AND THE WORLD WAR II MEMORIAL

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, on Memorial Day, my wife Marcelle and I 
were honored to attend the dedication of the gleaming new World War II 
Memorial. This memorial is not only a testament to the sacrifice of the 
16 million courageous men and women who served in that grand struggle, 
but, in some ways, it speaks to the tireless energy of our friend and 
former Senate majority leader, Bob Dole.
  Senator Dole received a Purple Heart in Italy, yet never let the 
lingering effects of his very serious wounds stand in the way of his 
overall effectiveness and ability to lead the Senate. After he left 
office, he turned his special brand of energy and intelligence towards 
ensuring the completion of the new memorial. He helped raise awareness 
of the project across the country and was critical to helping gain 
congressional approval of the measure.
  During the dedication, Senator Dole gave a moving tribute to his 
comrades-in-arms. These remarks helped give further context and meaning 
to the pillars, plaques, and fountains that make up this grand 
memorial.
  I will ask to have these remarks included in the Record, and I 
implore all of my colleagues to take a few minutes to read this speech.
  Today is a particularly fitting day to read Senator Dole's remarks, 
as today is his birthday. I want to wish my friend a very happy 
birthday.
  I ask unanimous consent the speech be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

Remarks of Senator Bob Dole--National WWII Memorial Dedication, May 29, 
                                  2004

       In the first week of January 1945, a hungry and lonesome 
     second lieutenant from small town Kansas dispatched a message 
     to his folks back home: ``You can send me something to eat 
     whenever you are ready,'' he wrote. ``Send candy, gum, 
     cookies, cheese, grape jelly, popcorn, nuts, peanut clusters, 
     Vicks Vapo Rub, wool socks, wool scarf, fudge, cookies, ice 
     cream, liver and onions, fried chicken, banana cake, milk, 
     fruit cocktail, Swiss steaks, crackers, more candy, 
     Lifesavers, peanuts, the piano, the radio, the living room 
     suite, the record player and Frank Sinatra. I guess you might 
     as well send the whole house if you can get it into a five-
     pound box. P.S., keep your fingers crossed.''
       In authoring that only slightly exaggerated wish list I 
     merely echoed the longings of 16 million Americans whose 
     greatest wish was for an end to the fighting. Sixty years on 
     our ranks have dwindled for the thousands assembled here on 
     the Mall and the millions more watching all across America in 
     living rooms and hospitals and wherever it may be--our men 
     and women overseas and our friends in Great Britain and our 
     allies all around the world. Our final reunion cannot long be 
     delayed.
       Yet if we gather in the twilight it is brightened by the 
     knowledge that we have kept faith with our comrades. 
     Sustained by over 600,000 individual contributions, we have 
     raised this memorial to commemorate the service and sacrifice 
     of an entire generation. What we dedicate today is not a 
     memorial to war, rather it's a tribute to the physical and 
     moral courage that makes heroes out of farm and city boys and 
     that inspires Americans in every generation to lay down their 
     lives for people they will never meet, for ideals that make 
     life itself worth living.
       This is also a memorial to the American people who in the 
     crucible of war forged a unity that became our ultimate 
     weapon. Just as we pulled together in the course of a common 
     threat 60 years ago, so today's Americans united to build 
     this memorial. Small children held their grandfather's hand 
     while dropping pennies in a collection box. Entire families 
     contributed in memory of loved ones who could win every 
     battle except the battle against time. I think of my brother, 
     Kenny, and my brothers-in-law Larry Nelson and Allen Steel, 
     just three among the millions of ghosts in navy blue and 
     olive drab we honor with this memorial.
       Of course, not every warrior wore a uniform. As it happens, 
     today is the 101st birthday of Bob Hope, the GI's favorite 
     entertainer who did more to boost our morale than anyone next 
     to Betty Grable. And I can already hear Bob . . . ``but I was 
     next to Betty Grable.'' And it's hard to believe, but today 
     is also the 87th birthday of John F. Kennedy, a hero of the 
     south Pacific, who, a generation after the surrender 
     documents were signed aboard the USS Missouri, spoke of a new 
     generation of Americans tempered by war that was nevertheless 
     willing ``to pay any price, bear any burden, meet any 
     hardship, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and 
     success of liberty.'' And we shall always honor the memory 
     of our great leader and our American hero, General 
     Eisenhower, who led us to victory all across the world.
       As we meet here today, young Americans are risking their 
     lives in liberty's defense. They are the latest link in a 
     chain of sacrifice older than America itself. After all, if 
     we met the test of our times, it was because we drew 
     inspiration from those who had gone before, including the 
     giants of history who are enshrined on this Mall, from 
     Washington, who fathered America with his sword and ennobled 
     it with his character . . . from Jefferson, whose pen gave 
     eloquent voice to our noblest aspirations . . . from Lincoln, 
     who preserved the Union and struck the chains from our 
     countrymen . . . and from Franklin Roosevelt, who presided 
     over a global coalition to rescue humanity from those who had 
     put the soul itself in bondage. Each of these presidents was 
     a soldier of freedom. And in the defining event of the 20th 
     century, their cause became our cause. On distant fields and 
     fathomless oceans, the skies over half the planet and in 
     10,000 communities on the home front, we did far more than 
     avenge Pearl Harbor. The citizen soldiers who answered 
     liberty's call fought not for territory, but for justice, not 
     for plunder, but to liberate enslaved peoples around the 
     world.
       In contending for democracy abroad, we learned painful 
     lessons about our own democracy. For us, the Second World War 
     was in effect a second American revolution. The war invited 
     women into the workforce. It exposed the injustice on African 
     Americans, Hispanics and Japanese Americans and others who 
     demonstrated yet again that war is an equal opportunity 
     employer. What we learned in foreign fields of battle we 
     applied in post-war America. As a result, our democracy, 
     though imperfect, is more nearly perfect than in the days of 
     Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. That's what 
     makes America forever a work in progress--a land that has 
     never become, but is always in the act of becoming. And 
     that's why the armies of democracy have earned a permanent 
     place on this sacred ground.
       It is only fitting when this memorial was opened to the 
     public about a month ago the very first visitors were school 
     children. For them, our war is ancient history and those who 
     fought it are slightly ancient themselves. Yet, in the end, 
     they are the ones for whom we built this shrine and to whom 
     we now hand the baton in the unending relay of human 
     possibility.
       Certainly the heroes represented by the 4,000 gold stars on 
     the freedom wall need no monument to commemorate their 
     sacrifice. They are known to God and to their fellow 
     soldiers, who will mourn their passing until the day of our 
     own. In their names, we dedicate this place of meditation, 
     and it is in their memory that I ask you to stand, if 
     possible, and join me in a moment of silent tribute to remind 
     us all that at sometime in our life, we have or may be called 
     upon to make a sacrifice for our country to preserve liberty 
     and freedom . . .
       . . . God bless America.

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